


Sleeping Beauty

by novembermond



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Brainwashing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-20 00:44:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1490437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novembermond/pseuds/novembermond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on <a href="http://capkink.dreamwidth.org/1349.html?thread=62789#cmt62789">this</a> prompt on the capkink meme: "I just want to see an AU where both Bucky and Steve fall off the train and get captured by Zola (say someone else stops Schmidt, like Peggy or the Commandos or whoever). So Bucky gets his metal arm and superhumanness and everything, maybe they keep Steve on ice in order to control him. Until everything goes wrong and they escape to kick ass.</p><p>I don't care - whatever you want, I just want to see Avengers/the Winter Soldier w/ Bucky and Steve fighting on the same side against Loki/Hydra. And while Steve/Bucky is preferred, it's not required."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleeping Beauty

They call him the Sleeping Beauty, and a beauty he is. He occupies the pod next to the Soldier’s. He is there when the Soldier is thawed and he’s there when the Soldier goes under again. Maybe the Beauty wakes when the Soldier sleeps; he does not know. The Soldier has a feeling that the Beauty has always been there with him, that he is important, but the Soldier wouldn’t know, getting wiped over and over again. 

*

Someone is screaming. It sounds a lot like the Soldier sounds when they have to break him down for new programming. The Soldier closes his mouth and swallows. The screaming does not stop. He is wet and shivering like always when he gets thawed. He does not know how often it has happened. He opens his eyes to glaring light. The screaming is still going on, combined with other noises and several people shouting orders. 

“Attention!” someone says sharply. The word runs through his body like a wave. He forces himself upright and focuses on the source of the order. “Today there is an easy mission for you.” The Soldier does not react. They don’t need his acknowledgement. “You go over to him and you tell him to stop resisting.”

He can’t know for sure, but this one must be a first. He does not usually get thawed to say a sentence. They probably will give him orders to back that sentence up with some force. He flexes his metal hand. 

The Soldier goes to the screaming man, who is strapped into the Soldiers’ usual place. The man is writhing and trying to break the straps holding him down. The Soldier knows it is useless, but he doesn’t know why he knows this. When he comes to stand right next to the other man, he can see his face clearly. And there is – something with his face? The words Sleeping Beauty cross his mind, not that this man is sleeping right now. 

He reaches for the man’s cheek with his right hand, the warm one. “Calm down”, he tells the man. “Stop resisting.” The man stares at him with big blue eyes. His expression changes completely, his mouth goes slack, though whether in shock, awe or fear, the soldier could not say. 

“We are trying to help him; that is all.” Someone behind the Soldier says. The Soldier repeats this to the man. 

The mission is over as easily as that. The man stops resisting the programming. The Soldier is even allowed to take a warm bath before he gets sent out to one of his more usual missions. 

*

Sometimes he does his work alone. Sometimes there is a team. Sometimes there is the other one. A familiar face, someone the Soldier is used to even when they scrub his mind clean. He sleeps in the pod next to the Soldier, that one. 

*

A fist in his face makes him fall to the ground. He is hauled up again and beaten some more. “Why did you fail to complete the mission?”

The Soldier spits blood. “There were children on the ship.” 

More blows. “I don’t see the problem.” 

And the thing is, the Soldier does not see the problem either. The mission objective had been to blow this ship out of the water and he just had not. When the time had come, his arm had not moved. The mission failed. The Soldier does not say any more. There is nothing he could offer up. When they get tired of beating him, he is taken to the freezing room. But instead of putting him into his pod, they make him stand in front of the other one, the one that is occupied by a tall, blond man. 

“If you fail again, maybe we should punish him. Would you like that, hmmm?” The Soldier does not know who this man in the pod is, but the thought of him being punished makes his stomach clench. 

*

He does not fail missions. The Soldier takes pride in that. Or he would, if he remembered how many missions he had completed with success. He is an unstoppable force of nature, but one that can be pointed at targets. He completes every mission.

Until he doesn’t. 

There is a huge, green monster he is supposed to capture alive. There is someone else who is also after the monster. The Soldier eliminates that one with ease. The monster, on the other hand, almost eliminates the Soldier without breaking a sweat. 

“He needs a new arm, this one is garbage now. Most of the bones in his other arm are broken, so are his legs and five ribs. The lung is punctured, but we can repair that.” The voice goes on, listing injury after injury, ending with “He won’t be fit for the field for the next weeks, and we should not freeze him until he is healed. We can’t be too sure of the after effects.” 

The Soldier cringes. He failed the mission and he can’t be of any use for the foreseeing future. Maybe they’ll simply put him down with a bullet between his eyes, like a horse that broke its leg. 

“This surely isn’t the first time he’s been injured? Why all the coddling?”

“Well, according to the records, he’s never been damaged to quite that extent.” An angry huff from his commanding officer follows.

He failed. He failed. 

*

“Wake up, wake up!” 

The Soldier stirs. This is not the voice of his current commanding officer. On the other hand, they change all the time, their lives flying by, and an order is an order. He wakes up. The man from the other pod stands above him, a faint smile tugs at his lips. The Soldier thinks the last time he saw this man, he had been writhing on the floor in pain, electroshocks coursing through his body nonstop. The Soldier blinks. 

“Come on, get up, we need to go!” 

The Soldier doesn’t think he is supposed to take orders from Sleeping Beauty. He is like him, an asset, a weapon. Yet, his body obeys blindly. He puts on the clothes the other one gives him and follows him out of the room at his command. He finds that even if he isn’t supposed to answer to this one, he wants to. He stumbles after him, still in pain from previous injuries. The man is not completely healthy either, he favors his left side and seems a little off balance. 

“What is the mission?” The Soldier thinks that if he knows, he might be able to help him better. Then he thinks that he should not be thinking at all. He is, after all, only a weapon. He should not be asking questions and he should be severely punished for assuming otherwise. 

No punishment comes forth. “The mission is to leave this place. Should we get separated, go there. You need to get out of here at any cost, you understand?”

The Soldier nods, because even if they do not need his acknowledgement, he has to answer when asked directly. Before he can ask where “there” is, an electronic device gets pushed into his hand. It shows a map, with a red dot marking an address. This is going to be one of his easiest missions. 

He keeps on thinking that until they are spotted. They fight their way through. No matter how many there are, nobody can match up to the both of them. Then their commanding officer shows up. 

“Stop right there!” 

The Soldier freezes. Sleeping Beauty tugs at his arm. “Come on, Bucky, please.” He falters. He must obey. He takes a step back, towards their commander. The other one looks like he’s about to cry. 

A shot rings and the Beauty falls to his knees. Red is blossoming on his shirt. A second and third bullet embed themselves in his chest. “Run, Bucky, get out of here!”

He does not know who or what Bucky is, nor does he know what comes over him, but he screams “No, not without you!” at the top of his lungs. A well placed kick gets the gun out of the commander’s hand. He crushes the man whose orders the Soldier had been following up until now against the wall with his metal arm while picking up Steve – who’s Steve? – and running for dear life. 

*

They are kept in a small white cell. He curls up in the corner, awaiting punishment. Sleeping Beauty – Steve – is strapped to a cot while someone digs his bullets out. Gotta patch him up before taking him apart again. 

“Bucky,” Steve calls out. “It’s okay. We are safe here. They’ll never get us again.”

A cell is a cell. A handler is a handler. 

A man crouches in safe distance of the Soldier. “Hello, I am Agent Coulson, of SHIELD.”

*

“In the end you will always kneel.” Loki says. 

The Captain throws his head back and laughs. “Kneel!” Loki hisses, attacking the Captain with his staff. Someone tackles Loki from behind. An arm made of metal connects with his face.

“We will never kneel again!” Bucky screams. It takes both the Captain and Iron Man to pull him off Loki so they can arrest the god.


End file.
